


Adoration Fated

by BBirdy



Series: Soul Bound [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Needs a Hug, Angst, Cuddling, Cuddling Hurts, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Whump, F/M, Implied Mpreg, Kwami & Miraculous Lore, Platonic Cuddling, Tension, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25350253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BBirdy/pseuds/BBirdy
Summary: His reassuring smile looked heavy at the corners of his mouth."Can you lie down for me?"He followed orders without question, finding the largest couch tucked under a blanket in the corner of the room. "Don't go."His beg was such a soft sound she might not have heard it had she not been listening."I won't."
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Plagg/Tikki (Miraculous Ladybug)
Series: Soul Bound [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1769287
Comments: 9
Kudos: 70





	Adoration Fated

Ladybug didn't know where to go, not at first. The idea of trying to force a soul bond on that windy rooftop didn't feel right. 

"Nest," she mumbled, turning in a slow circle. "Nest."

Mind reeling she knew she had to hurry. It wasn't just the burning feeling underneath her chest. It was reaching something primal, instinctive. She had to protect her kitten. And still, all he could do was lean up against the chimney, arms so tight around himself she thought he would puncture holes into his armor. 

He watched her with glassy green eyes. Whether he was about to cry or whether it was simply a trick of the light did not matter to her. She had to find  _ somewhere _ .

And, thinking as quickly as she could, found one. 

The tiny building offered little cover. Judging by the mess in the lower floors it had once been a popular homeless shelter or perhaps a gang's hideaway. Whatever it had once been, the condemned structure was plastered with caution tape and  _ Do Not Enter _ signs and had clearly been abandoned for years. 

Ladybug alighted on a crumbling balcony nearest the top. Their combined weight was enough to drop pebbles to the ground below, dirt creating soft clouds under their feet. Chat Noir held to her arm, his fingertips clinging, his breath coming in sharp puffs. The half-mile journey had robbed him of energy, or perhaps his nearness to Ladybug had done it. 

Either way, she could feel the pull between them now, harder than magnetic. Her arms physically ached without him rested in them. Still, instinct demanded somewhere better. 

_ You could take him back to your balcony, _ Marinette's mind reminded annoyingly.  _ He wouldn't notice it, he's too busy suffering because of you. _

"Stop."

Chat Noir whimpered, drawing away.

She turned, hating her stupidity. "Not you," Ladybug promised gently. "Just my thoughts getting ahead of me."

Even his reassuring smile looked heavy at the corners of his mouth.

"Can you lie down for me?"

He followed orders without question, finding the largest couch tucked under a blanket in the corner of the room. "Don't go."

His beg was such a soft sound she might not have heard it had she not been listening. 

"I won't."

Cursing at her options she gathered cushions from the various chairs, left behind tarps and blankets. While rational thought demanded what she was doing, instinct had her snatching at anything. It was like muscle memory. Though perhaps it hadn't been  _ her _ muscles. 

"Chat-" she stopped. 

You promised him a lie, she reminded herself. And with how hard he had begun to tremble, lying across those stiff old cushions, she had to hold to that. 

"Kitty?"

He perked up, eyes trained on her. 

She hated how content that smile was. 

Crouched beside him she took his hand. 

Winding their fingers together he pressed a kiss to her knuckles. The habitual gesture she couldn't quite admit to hating. 

"How are you feeling?" she whispered, brushing back wild hair. 

One shoulder lifted and fell. 

"Can you stand for me?"

It was like she'd cast a spell over him. He stood, spine ramrod straight. 

"Relax," she kept her voice even. 

Chat Noir hesitated, shoulder cocked at an odd angle. He wanted, he  _ needed _ to follow her orders. But he couldn't quite figure out how. 

"Doesn't matter," she waved the words away, taking his other hand. 

He followed obediently after her, like a baby duck would follow his mother. 

Ladybug smiled. He was cute in a way, not quite a baby duck in her eyes. More of a kitten. 

That smile set his trembling knees off once more. 

"Lay down here," she crouched. It wasn't exactly what she'd call a proper birds nest. It was lumpy in odd places where the blankets hadn't bent to her will, The cushions sagged in places. 

With the contented sigh, Chat Noir had, curling in the center, it might as well have been thousand count sheets and silk pillows. 

Instinct could only bid her so far. Sinking to her knees Ladybug hesitated. What now?

"My lady?"

The words drew her in, like a hook around her navel. She gave in, gathering the kitten in her arms, his legs hunched at her side, his head underneath hers. His cat ears brushed underneath her own. 

And once more he released that sigh, that deep sound of longing and something so much more than she could find words for. 

His breathing did not ease. 

Clinging to her arm his claws dug into honeycomb armor. 

"Kitty?"

He shook his head "It's not right. Something is _wrong_."

A hand brushed over his sweat matted hair, pulling it from his mask. "What's wrong?"

It wasn't just his cheeks that flushed pale pink, though whether from exertion or embarrassment on couldn't be sure, but his forehead and tops of his ears. 

"It, I," he tried to wrap his mind around his numb tongue. Right or not, to have her hands on him was filling him with too many tangled emotions. 

"Chat Noir?" her voice took on a dreamy quality he wasn't sure if he was hearing or was really happening. "Chat Noir. _Tell_ _me_."

And once more he was following her request. He couldn't not listen. It was a compulsion to follow. 

"It's not right. You aren't bonded well enough with your kwami yet," he spoke without thinking, sure of the words. 

She paused, frigid underneath him. "You're sure about that?"

He nodded, needing to be closer. It was like an itch he couldn't scratch, far more demanding, far more _deep_ , but it was the only comparison his rattled mind could summon. And that itch kept being brushed over, every touch of her hand. It was almost relief, almost better. But every whisper of breath on her skin had him  _ trembling _ . 

"How did you know that?" She asked, distant.

Chat Noir clung to her, still fighting every howling instinct. "Know what?"

"About..."

"Oh," he was quiet for a moment, huffing like he had a fever. And then the explanation appeared on his lips, a thought half-remembered. "It's my kwami. Once the soulbond begins my kwami bonds to me first, to adapt me for carrying the, the, you know."

Ladybug blinked, considering that. "So he's like a voice in your head?"

"It's not that much different really."

Ladybug was laughing before she knew why. 

The sound twisted his insides, jolting him forward with a long cat-like yowl. "Don't," he begged, arms clenched around his middle. "Don't laugh like that."

His plea was painful, burning underneath her skin. 

Chat Noir was quiet another long moment, listening. And the information came again. "My kwami just, he wants Tikki to know he isn't mad."

Mouth open she tried to think. "Mad?" she began, a thought divulging, breaking away. "She forgives him. It's not his fault. Neither of them were paying attention." Marinette slapped a hand over her mouth. She hadn't said that. She hadn't  _ meant _ to say that. 

Tikki pressed a phantom kiss to her forehead, more a memory of a kiss than an experience. "We're beginning to bond," whispered the voice in her head. "Like Chat Noir and his kwami. Think of it less like I was and more... like siri on your phone. I can't hear what you're thinking but I hear what you say, see what you want me to see."

Ladybug nodded. "So once were bonded I can actually soul bond with Chat Noir?" I can stop him from being in so much pain? Her thoughts echoed. 

"Yes."

That brought an unreasonable amount of relief. She didn't have the right to be relieved, not yet, not while Chat Noir's every twitch had him whimpering. 

Marinette held him closer, hating even the layer of honeycomb armor between them. But she knew that was just the human in her. It wasn't that they weren't close enough. It was that, while he almost literally wore his heart on his sleeve hers had further to travel to be close to him. 

"How much longer?"

"I don't know."

The answer was not only Tikki's but Chat Noir's. Or at least it was Chat Noir's kwami. 

"What else can I do?" Ladybug bit her lip. His head was still cradled underneath her chin, legs split at the knees. One leg curled on the floor, the crook of his knee squeezing her thigh. The other leg turns a little, the ankle pressed into her hip. She wasn't quite holding him, as his wound muscles would press himself against her no matter how she held him. Her arms couldn't release however and she laced her fingers around him, one thumb brushing his shoulder. 

"Talk to me?" Chat Noi asked. 

And, much like the orders he couldn't resist, she found herself weak to his requests. 

"What do you want to talk about?"

He found he had just enough self-awareness to laugh at himself, but that didn't stop the next question. "Tell me a story?"

Marinette gnawed more instantly at her lip. A story? What story could she tell him? True love fairytales were out of the question. She knew a few camp stories but she didn't suppose a horror would make him feel better than a romance would. 

Tikki metaphorically tapped her, drawing attention. "I have a story."

Marinette didn't fight the flow of words, passing through her lips. 

"In a time, long long ago, there were two young people, unaware of each other for the longest time, though they passed each other near daily. For you see, he only served those above him and she, she was a princess, the daughter of the great pharaoh of Egypt."

Chat Noir had closed his eyes. and, absentmindedly Ladybug had begun to rock him. 

"They would have gone on like this for a great many years, their entire lives perhaps, until a person of power found a way to exploit it, a snake, drawing a plague to their lands. And those who held the miraculouses, chose this boy and his princess. They fought valiantly, bravely, saving thousands of lives. until the time their kwami's could not pull away in time. The two were told to bond. A princess, used to the duties given her, accepted, told the boy that once their prize had been delivered to take it to the royal family and she would see they were cared for. He agreed. But during the bond, during this bond, they found themselves drawn closer until the will was too great. Against what they had been told they removed their masks. And the bond became permanent."

Chat dug his fingers into Ladybug's arm. "I don't… I don't like this story."

Ladybug could feel his fear, not her own but close enough it might as well have been. But she had to know, had to hear the end of this story. 

"The bond became permanent. And when their prize was close, when it was only moments from their arms, his heart flickered, and not daring to lose him, the princess tore hers in two, giving him half of it. All three perished, the princess and her boy, and their prize, withering from the inside out."

"Stop!"Chat Noir's shriek was enough to push him from her grip. 

Ladybug slapped a hand across her mouth. "Oh, Kitty. I'm sorry I didn't."

"This is why you cannot know," Tikki's voice was a sob in her mind. "You cannot show each other your faces in this. Plagg told Chat Noir already. But you _needed to know_."

Ladybug was shaking her head, hands pressed over her eardrums. That couldn't stop what already existed in her head. These were words she could not block out. 

"I had no way to know," Tikki was struggling to excuse herself, however, both could still feel her guilt, strong as a fist around her heart, squeezing out all other feeling. "These things don't come on a timeline. I only know of every several hundred years. Plagg finds me, tells me. You shouldn't have to go through this and I am so sorry."

Chat Noir placed a hand on her knee, breaking Ladybug from her reverie, her conversation held at silent council in her head. 

"It's okay Tikki." And even though they came in Chat Noir's own soft voice it was Plagg who willed them. "It's okay. I didn't tell you because…"

"Because I said yes," Chat Noir finished the quivering sentence. 

"What?" Ladybug snapped up, a hand underneath his chin. "Kitty, why-"

His eyes were big, horribly sad. "I know you can't know who I am, but right now, me, the one underneath this mask, needs a family, wants a child. I can't tell you how or why. But know that it is okay."

"But you were, you said you didn't want…" She couldn't wrap her mind around this. They were in this situation, he was in this pain because he  _ wanted  _ it?

Something deep in her chest rolled into place, a boulder in her chest, pressing her heart right up against her ribcage. 

She lurched forward, palm pressed into her skin. Everything lit up, her skin on fire, her breath and heart battling in her ears. 

"What happened?" she asked, a finger brushing her chin. Her skin twitched underneath the glove. She'd become a bundle of nerves and signal, all misfiring. She needed… something.

"You're ready for the bond," Tikki's voice vanished in the back of her head, melting away. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yay! There's more. The next story will be something of a flashback to Adrien's discovery. 
> 
> Please leave comments as I love to reply to any and all, whether they be questions, concerns or just keysmashes!


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